


the walls here are going to kill me

by choomchoom



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Catra Angst, F/F, Post-Season/Series 05, and cake, with blanket forts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:22:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24417337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choomchoom/pseuds/choomchoom
Summary: There's a serious lack of dark corners to hide in at Bright Moon. Catra tries to live with it, but Adora and her friends show her that she doesn't have to.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 571





	the walls here are going to kill me

Adora always wanted to be up high when she was stressed. She liked to be able to look out at the Fright Zone, to be able to see everything around her and know what might be coming her way. She’s always been braver than Catra.

Catra hides.

* * *

She had never thought of it like this at the time, but she had a favorite dark corner in the Fright Zone. There was a storeroom where they kept old empty shipping crates that no one, in all Catra’s time there, had ever used. She doesn’t even remember finding it for the first time, but she’d gone back again and again. She’d liked the feel of the walls pressed against her back, the way the stacks of crates around her limited the space and kept her in shadow. It felt safe.

Adora had always found her there, eventually. She’d only ever stayed until Adora came and sat next to her, asking gently what was wrong even when she had to have known that Catra wasn’t going to talk. She’d never left without Adora standing up first and smiling when Catra let her pull her to her feet.

She hadn’t realized how ingrained that routine was until the day Adora left. She’d yelled for Lonnie to cover for her in the debriefing and scrambled to her favorite corner. She’d stayed until nearly dawn, when she finally realized that she’d been waiting for Adora, and that Adora wasn’t coming. She’d wrapped her anger around herself like a bandage, stood up on her own, and walked away.

She’d gone back, after that day. It had only ever made her angrier at Adora, but back then, anger at Adora had become its own sort of comfort.

* * *

Bright Moon is exactly what she had – well, what she should have expected. It’s bright and airy and open, and the shine of the walls makes her eyes hurt.

There are no dark corners at Bright Moon. There are hardly even corners, which is just ridiculous.

This place is about as foreign as Horde Prime’s ship.

She tries to find a basement, or a storeroom without windows, or a closet with a _door_ , and she can’t. Bright Moon is exactly as it appears – open, inviting, exposed.

Of course nothing at Bright Moon is suited to her. It’s barely believable that they’re tolerating her presence.

She tries the woods, when the brightness gets to be too much one day. Melog follows her. She doesn’t have the heart to tell them to turn around – and they might not even listen, anyway.

The woods are so full of magic, especially now. They feel soft and full and alive. She can tell that it should be soothing, but it grates. The woods try to welcome her in, try to give her the space to breathe and look and feel. It doesn’t help. She knows she isn’t needed here, and being welcomed without being needed only ever hurts in the end.

She goes back to Bright Moon. She doesn’t exactly have anywhere else to go.

Adora is outside the castle, practicing sword forms, when Catra and Melog get back. She waves, her smile full and easy and her cheeks flushed from exertion. Catra pastes on a smile of her own and walks over to her.

“How was the – are you okay?” Adora knows her so well it should be illegal.

“I’m fine,” she says. She should be fine. She doesn’t have any reason to be anything else.

Adora frowns. “Something’s up.”

Even though Adora is sweaty from training, Catra goes in for a hug. “I don’t really like Bright Moon,” she says into Adora’s shoulder, where she can’t see the disappointment that’s sure to be on Adora’s face.

“Okay,” Adora says, stroking Catra’s back once and then pulling back enough that she can try to meet her eyes. Catra stares resolutely over her shoulder. “We’re going to be back in space soon enough anyway, but is there anything I can do to make it better?”

She can’t resist meeting Adora’s eyes anymore. Maybe it’s that stupid She-Ra magic. “What?”

Adora eases back, takes Catra’s hand and leads them over to the side of the castle, where they sit. Even the outer paneling has these absurd rounded divots in it, making sitting here a cruel mockery of sitting with her back to a proper wall. But Melog curls up across both their laps, and Adora’s hand is still in hers, so it’s a little bit okay.

Adora wriggles a little closer, so she’s pressed right up against Catra’s shoulder, and speaks. “When I first came here, they gave me this giant bed that was like...I can’t even describe it. It didn’t feel like a bed at all. It was too soft. Apparently most people think that soft is a good thing, but I couldn’t sleep there when it felt like if I had to get up in a hurry, I wouldn’t be able to, and I couldn’t stop imagining that I would sink in too deeply and be trapped in the bed forever. I thought I would have to just get used to it, but when Bow and Glimmer realized I didn’t like it, they got me a better one.” She’s smiling by the time she finishes. “Whatever it is, maybe we can change it.”

Catra looks down, pretending she’s very focused on combing her fingers through Melog’s mane. She hadn’t considered the possibility that anything about Bright Moon could change for her.

“It’s stupid,” she prefaces.

Adora shrugs, jacket chafing against Catra’s arm. “It can’t be as stupid as the bed thing.”

“It’s too bright,” Catra says before Adora can take it back. She clings to Adora’s hand – even if Adora laughs at her or scolds her, it’s okay as long as Adora doesn’t leave. “There are windows everywhere and the walls literally shine and even at night you can see the light from the Moonstone in every room in the castle. There’s nowhere to –” She cuts herself off. Why would she need to hide? “I feel exposed.”

“Oh,” Adora says. She squeezes Catra’s hand back, tight enough that Catra can’t help but relax her grip a little. “Okay. I can work with that.”

“Really?” Catra really needs to stop treating every admission of weakness like it’s the end of the world, but she never exactly remembers that until after, when Adora’s nodding and smiling faintly and still here.

“Yeah,” Adora says. “In fact, I’ve already got an idea.”

* * *

Adora had asked her to stay away until sunset so she could implement whatever plan she had in mind. Catra spends the time wandering around, her elation at the fact that Adora had listened and cared at war with the desire to turn back time and stop herself from ever having made that weak, trite, and ungrateful admission.

Finally, it’s time. She clenches her fists, just for a moment, and then she goes inside.

Adora has built a…a something. It looks like mostly a mound of blankets, but there’s a structure to it, composed of beams that Catra’s pretty sure Adora made by dismantling one of the rolling racks they use instead of closets here. One of the blankets is bunched up over the top of the square she made with the beams, revealing more blankets inside. It’s set in the corner furthest from a window, and Catra can tell from here that when that last blanket is pulled down over the entrance, it will be totally dark inside.

“We can work on getting better curtains tomorrow,” Adora says, shuffling from foot to foot. “All I have to do is ask Glimmer where I can get thicker fabric, and Bow would be the best person to figure out how to install them over windows with these shapes, but I didn’t want to involve them without knowing it was okay with you. So I’ve got this for now.”

Catra barely hears her, too busy staring at the blanket mound. “It’s perfect,” she says, and then, because who’s going to stop her, this is here for _her_ , she runs across the room to dive inside.

The blankets covering the floor are soft but not too fluffy and the wall that makes up the back of it is covered with just a thin sheet to keep the light out. She grabs a pillow from the floor and hugs it, unable to deal with the rush of relief and security.

Adora climbs in after her and pulls the final blanket down, leaving them in darkness. “This good?” she asks.

This is the safest Catra’s felt since she got to Bright Moon. She grabs onto Adora’s arm and tugs her closer. “Yeah.”

She’s twined her body entirely around Adora by now. They’re close enough that she can feel Adora relax, just a little.

* * *

The bedroom door creaks open. “Adora! You in here?” It’s Glimmer’s voice, but Catra can also hear Bow’s footsteps beside her.

Catra has no idea how much time has passed. She and Adora made out a little, and now her head is in Adora’s lap, with Adora stroking her hair.

“Are we?” Adora asks, too quiet for anyone but Catra to hear.

It’s strange to realize that Glimmer and Bow will leave them alone if they want to be left alone. Catra waits until Bow says, under his breath, “They’re probably busy,” and for the sound of both of them turning away before she calls out.

“We’re in here!”

Someone fumbles with the blankets, and a second later there’s light spilling in from past Glimmer and Bow’s faces. Bow’s expression is soft like it gets when Catra and Adora are being “cute” and Catra’s a little tempted to kick him, but she doesn’t because she’s growing as a person.

“What’s up?” says Adora. Her fingers are still twirling through Catra’s hair and despite the light reminding her of the rest of the room, the rest of the castle, the rest of the universe, Catra closes her eyes.

“We – uh – we were just wondering where you were,” Glimmer says. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s great,” Adora says.

“Join us,” says Catra.

“Are you sure?” Glimmer asks. Behind her, Bow is squealing about “Best Friend Squad Blanket Fort Sleepover!!!” so it’s not like she could say no now even if she wanted to.

Catra opens her eyes just a crack to meet her gaze. “I’m sure. Especially if you bring cake.”

Glimmer grins.

* * *

All four of them sleep there, after cake, hours of talking, and one wrestling mishap that briefly knocks over the entire fort. When Catra wakes up, there’s a crack of light shining in from the haphazard job they’d done at putting it back together. It’s just enough to illuminate Adora’s face next to her, allowing Catra to wake her up giggling with a series of kisses to the tip of her nose.

Catra had sort of talked about it, curled against the wall and Adora after Adora had insisted that Glimmer dismiss the light sphere they’d used to eat their cake by, and Glimmer and Bow had hardly blinked in response. Glimmer had opinions on curtain patterns and Bow had come up with an idea for some invention then refused to talk about it, and somehow, none of it make Catra feel the way she’d made herself feel about it.

Things are so different here.

The light and openness is a little less grating when they all leave the fort in the morning to get breakfast. It’s a lot more bearable for the fact that Catra knows that the fort will be there whenever she needs it, and so will her people.

**Author's Note:**

> does anyone deserve a blanket fort more than these characters
> 
> (about bow's secret invention - one concept for this fic was "bow invents sunglasses for catra" but i liked this version of the ending too much to try to fit it in)


End file.
